Twin Suns
by MidKnight Rider
Summary: This story was originally published as two chapters in my ongoing series about Daniel Sunshine and Shadow. It occurred to me that it worked just as well as a short stand alone, for anyone who might just want to read about Jack and Daniel and how they dealt with the events in Abyss.


Jack tilted his head, eyebrows high, looked at the flickering image of Carter on the monitor and said,

"Say again?"

"She's a Goa'uld, sir" Sam repeated, "She won't give us her name but she's taken Kianna as a host and admits to being in the service of … Baal."

Daniel had only been returned to the team for a little over six months, but he remembered more and more every day; and some things he had never forgotten. The way his team communicated with little more than hard looks, level stares and the occasional very short glance was one of those things he had never lost.

Hammond may not catch it, even with all his decades of experience. Hammond probably did see it and ignored it since _he _knew what it meant.

But Daniel saw it. He'd been seeing it for months. The sudden furtive glances, the changes of subject and this….

The '_are you okay, sir'_ in Sam's eyes and the fierce, brows narrowed _yes fine drop it_ in Jack's. Daniel's warning bells chimed, deflecting him from the immediate horrified reaction to the idea that Jonas had been working with a Goa'uld for months. The look he gave Jack asked for an explanation. The return stare shot him down just as effectively as it had Carter.

Daniel listened with half of his attention as Carter continued to update them on the new development. The rest of his attention was firmly on Jack.

He wasn't sure why Sam would hesitate before telling Jack they were dealing with Baal again; and he wasn't sure why Jack would shut down so completely at the news. He wasn't sure why the shadow in Jack's expression would cause an electric chill in his own gut. He really didn't know why they would be keeping something so serious from him.

But he was determined to find out.

(0)

Men can't multitask. At least that was what he had always been told; and he wasn't even certain that what he did could truly be defined as multitasking. His brain and his thoughts constantly wandered, took off on tangents, skipped pages to the next conclusion that no one else ever seemed to see, even as one part could stay fixated on the task at hand.

It was a skill he had learned in school, from the earliest he could remember. He grasped a concept instantly and then found out the best thing he could possibly do was to remain silent and polite and hope the world caught up with him soon.

He'd had to find a way to stay entertained while the rest of his classmates listened over and over until they got it, so his brain had flittered off through endless possibilities and made connections in the bright, wonderful galaxy that no one else ever seemed to see.

Living with too much going on in your head was a curse, he had decided, a long time ago. But it was his curse and in time he learned to see it as a blessing as well.

What he had grasped, instantly, working with the Langarans was that they were impossible – petty, selfish and ridiculous; and that they would argue without pause unless he stopped them.

So now, while a part of his mind listened to Dreylock extoll the virtues of a lottery, and he waited for them to catch up to the inevitable conclusions that he had already reached, the rest of his overactive mind went wandering. He fought a yawn and wished – not for the first time – that Kelowna was on a more compatible time schedule with Earth. It was pushing midnight and his brain was hinting that perhaps sleep might be a good idea.

He didn't exactly close his eyes but he did reach mentally for the exercise he had taught himself, the one that helped him relax, centered him, even made it possible to calm his fevered thoughts and meditate with Teal'c on occasion.

Unintentionally he thought about the shadow laying over SG1. Teal'c and Sam were off world and unavailable for the confrontation Daniel was spoiling to have. He suspected Jack was asleep, damn him and his ability to ignore the Langarans. Once he had washed his hands of the situation, he had vanished.

Daniel had tried to broach the subject of Baal to Jack earlier. Jack had gone completely and utterly still – which was in itself should have been frightening. Jack yelled. Jack threatened. Jack bluffed and blustered and cut you off at the knees with biting sarcasm.

Jack O'Neill, quiet and still, was truly dangerous.

O'Neill had finally given him one of those hard, dark looks that reminded Daniel that a guy with black-ops training was really someone Daniel should fear a little more.

Daniel figured his life was hanging by the slender thread of their friendship for a few seconds.

He had said, "Not now, Daniel," turned on his heel and stomped off down the hall.

All right, maybe not stomped. That made Jack sound like a spoiled child and he wasn't. He was closed-off, impossible and annoying. But not childish.

_Not now_… Not _go away_, or _shut_ up or _leave it_ _alone Daniel_. Just, not now.

Of course that might just be because Jack knew Daniel wasn't going to leave it alone. They'd worked that out a long time ago when Daniel had bluntly told Jack that if all he wanted on his team was good little soldiers who would salute and obey orders and look at him with the same wide blue-eyed reverence he was getting from Carter – then he'd better reassign Daniel to another team because Daniel was never going to be that guy.

_You'll disobey direct orders?_ Jack had seemed truly incredulous at the idea.

_Only if they're stupid, or they'll get someone killed, or I can think of a better way._

_When have I given a stupid order?_ Jack had demanded.

Daniel had decided not to say "Abydos" and "nuclear weapon" at that point. He might need it for another time.

But they had worked it out, eventually, whether from mutual respect or mutual disrespect Daniel couldn't say, not even after all this time. At some point Daniel had acquiesced to being part of a military unit and Jack had accepted that sometimes he was a military commander and sometimes he was just another member of the debate club.

Now they were like twin suns - binary stars - caught in each other's orbit, each burning with its own fire and occasionally giving off flares.

It kept life interesting, at the very least.

He took his glasses off and rubbed at his tired eyes and wondered about calling a recess. He got up, poured himself more of the endless coffee and watched the black liquid that was his drug of choice slip from the pot to the cup.

And as he did his sleep-fogged and still busy brain suddenly conjured an image of Jack… falling and falling and falling in a room that wasn't right, with angles that were wrong and things that went up when they should go down; like he was stuck in an Ames room….

He barely stopped pouring coffee before it went all over his hand.

Shaking he put the pot down, took his cup back to the table and returned his glasses to where they belonged – helping him see clearly.

But it was too late. His inner vision had seized on the image and wouldn't let it go.

"Maybe this would be a good time to take a break," he interrupted.

The voices mercifully broke off. Their faces looked relieved as they stood and gathered papers and binders and Daniel handed them off to a military escort with instructions to take them to the VIP quarters and get them something to eat and drink.

He had no hopes that the bickering would stop once they were all in a small, gray room together but at least he wouldn't have to listen to it and maybe he could get a few blessed hours of sleep.

Though he knew he wouldn't. He was too worried about Sam and Teal'c.

And now there was this image….

He sat down in the silence, sipped cautiously at coffee and focused on his inner visions.

Jack was falling again and down was up and then he was caught in a web and hauled away to land on a latticework that seemed to have been made by some gigantic metal spider and he was defiant and then angry and then … then, oh god, then terrified and desperate and lost.

A knife hissed through the air, so close Daniel thought he heard the sound of it passing just by his ear.

_I won't let him destroy you…_

_You just said you couldn't help…._

Daniel felt the heat and warmth and joy leave his body in a slow, painful wash. It was like bleeding to death a trickle at a time. He actually saw the color leave both his hands and had to fight a wave of dizziness unlike anything he had known. It hit him with the force of an air to ground missile, stung like a staff blast

He'd been there and watched as Baal had slowly tortured away the defiant, kind, impassioned soul that was Jack O'Neill.

And he had done nothing at all to stop it.

Daniel's stomach churned and tears burned his eyes as he wondered how anyone dealt with this level of horror and ache and guilt.

He needed to find Jack – now – and kneel and put his forehead on the ground in the symbol of unconditional surrender the men of Abydos gave their Headman, expose the back of his neck for blessing or the lethal cut of a blade….

Which he expected would get him hauled to his feet by his collar with a disgusted,

_For cryin' out loud, Daniel…._

How was it possible that Jack didn't hate him? Why hadn't Jack left him, alone and without memory, in a tent on Vis Uban?

Unable to move, Daniel sat and became a prism for all his jumbled emotions, feeling them separate and blaze each in its own horrible way, an infinite spectrum of misery and regret and sorrow and need for forgiveness.

Tear-blinded, Daniel stared straight ahead and saw nothing while everything around him seemed to collapse.

(0)

Contrary to what Daniel believed, Jack was no more asleep than Daniel himself. Not with Sam and Teal'c reenacting a scene from Jules Verne with the twin threats of being crushed to death and Baal breathing down their necks.

His conscious thought skittered sideways to avoid admitting that he would rather they were buried under the ground of a foreign world than fall into the hands of Baal.

The only member of his team who was still available to him then was Daniel, so Jack went in search of him. It was late, if not by Kelownan standards. If Daniel hadn't called some kind of break so he could get some sleep, Jack would see to it that he did.

Jack didn't have to go far to find him. He was only about fifteen feet from the elevator doors when they opened and Daniel stumbled out into the corridor.

Jack stopped walking abruptly. Daniel looked like a semi had run him over, and then backed up and hit him again. Irritation with the Langarans had stirred in Jack's gut and sent a surge of anger into his throat, curses already forming….

When he realized that it wasn't the Langarans who had put that haunted look in Daniel's eyes. Everything Daniel ever felt showed up in his eyes sooner or later – something that had gotten him in trouble on more than one world, and quite often with his team.

Jack gave him the respect of looking back without flinching, though the curses died and came out a single, heartfelt,

"Crap."

Daniel halted a few feet away, breathing slowly. Jack hadn't realized someone could be that pale and still be alive.

"You're going to tell me you remember, aren't you?" Jack demanded.

Daniel blinked, off balance.

"Jack," Daniel's voice was wool-packed and soft.

Fine, Jack thought.

Daniel was subtle. He'd just start talking and slip the truth in somewhere along the way. Jack was blunt. He liked opening gambits that blew everyone else out of the water. In the case of working with Daniel, it was better to shoot straight. The guy was too smart and too smart meant that he knew where the conversation was going anyway. Smart also meant he went over something relentlessly, like a hamster in a wheel, often getting nowhere.

"Daniel," Jack said, cutting him off. "Come with me."

There was too much raw emotion pouring out of Daniel, leaking from those wide, too-bright eyes. He wanted to talk. (Christ, when did Daniel not want to talk?) But, he reminded himself sharply, this was part of the job. He was responsible for the people under his command and, god help him, that meant he was responsible for Daniel. Daniel had remembered and now his brain was going Mach 5 and if Jack didn't get him to pull up he was going to flame out.

But he wasn't doing this in the corridors of the SGC, not even at midnight.

Jack had an office, albeit one he rarely visited. This seemed like a good time. No one would think to look for them there.

They fell into natural lockstep even if Jack was wondering how Daniel was still on his feet.

Jack shut the door, put a hand on Daniel's shoulder and shoved him into a chair and then moved to the other side of his desk and sat down.

The chair was actually pretty comfortable. He was surprised.

"You want coffee?" Jack asked, thinking he could put a shot of whiskey in it if Daniel said yes. He had a bottle in the bottom drawer, if he recalled correctly, though he'd have to make the coffee. He glanced into the corner and saw the coffee maker had a layer of grey dust on it.

Daniel gave a long slow shake of his head.

"You don't want coffee?" Jack was more than a little startled.

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I think I'm going to throw up!" Daniel snapped. He was scrunched up in the chair, arms crossed over his chest as if he was physically holding everything inside.

Jack backed off a little.

"Daniel, you didn't do anything wrong," he said.

"I didn't do anything!"

"Yeah, well, I think we've all figured out by now what would have happened if you'd done more than you did," Jack said.

"But what did I do?" There was desperation and despair in his voice.

Jack studied him. It had been like this since Abydos. Daniel wanted the best choice, the right choice, the good choice and he'd push for it until he got it. Daniel would do anything to find that solution, even if it meant reinterpreting an order, or even directly disobeying one. He'd go through any barrier, step in where he hadn't been invited and argue with anyone in his path. In Daniel's mind, when Jack had been imprisoned by Baal, he had failed to do that. He had failed to convince Jack to Ascend, which in his mind had been the only possible right choice.

Jack went back to the very first lesson he had drilled into the shaggy-haired, raw, independent, tormented genius behind the tortoise shell geek-glasses.

We take care of each other on a team, Daniel. Never forget that.

Apparently, Daniel hadn't – and now it was eating him alive.

Daniel took a deep breath and Jack knew it was the precursor to a long, high-speed run-on series of sentences. He held up a hand to stop it and Daniel broke off without beginning.

"Look," Jack began, "I don't know how much you've remembered, but if you hadn't been there, I'd have cracked way sooner. You kept me sane, Daniel. You kept me alive even when it wasn't what I wanted. You… you…were you. We fought and yelled and you drove me _nuts_ because that's what you do, and it was normal – normal for us anyway. It kept me alive and if you were driving me nuts it meant Baal couldn't. The more I argued with you about being rescued, the more I convinced myself it was possible. The more I argued with you the more I knew I was still alive. You were _there_ and I can't believe you don't know how important that was."

"And that was the best I could do?" he asked, confirming Jack's suspicions.

"It was," Jack answered, "for me. It might not have been your choice, Daniel. But it was mine and you stuck it out with me." He leaned forward, rested his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands in front of him. "Daniel, until right now I wasn't sure that I didn't hallucinate the whole thing. That I didn't just dream you up and put you in that cell with me to create something familiar. Now I know. Now we both know. You _were_ there. It was enough."

Jack stopped talking abruptly. In seven years (minus one and a handful of months) that might have been the longest stretch of sentences he had ever shared with Daniel; with anyone really.

He was relieved that some of the color was returning to Daniel's face. Jack waited, knowing Daniel was smart enough to start putting the pieces together. He sat still and watched it happen.

Daniel looked at the floor for a long time, took his glasses off, and rubbed his eyes. Then his head lifted again. He looked up and to the right, frowning, brows drawn tight. His hands started moving, searching aimlessly in the air for the pieces he needed to fit this new knowledge into his world.

Then his eyebrows lifted and his bright eyes came back to focus on Jack. He put his glasses back on; though Jack wasn't sure if there was significance to the gesture. Was Daniel starting to be able to look at what had happened without seeing only misery and failure?

Daniel's body relaxed out of its scrunch a little. His shoulders squared slightly. Jack felt a surge of… something. Affection? Exasperation? In the field, Daniel was careful of his body language. When it was just his team, he often gave away everything he was thinking just by changing position.

"Is that why I'm not still in a tent on Vis Uban?" he asked.

"Something like that," Jack answered.

They sat staring for a few moments. Daniel no longer looked raw from the inside out at least. Jack hoped maybe he had shut down the overcrowded squirrel cage in Daniel's head enough that he might be able to find sleep now.

"You made the best choice you could, Daniel, and it's done now," Jack said. "Come on. It's not the first argument you ever lost with me."

A smile quirked the corners of his mouth. Light glinted off his glasses as he tilted his head.

"Yes it is," he said.

Jack sat up a little.

"No it's not!" he shot back.

Daniel's smile got a little wider. It still didn't reach all the way into his eyes but at least it was a smile.

"Okay, listen, you've got two choices now – you can go curl up in your room and try to get some sleep, which I _strongly_ recommend; or you can come with me to the Control Room and pace around waiting to hear from Carter and Teal'c," Jack said, bluntly.

Daniel scratched his fingers through his hair.

"I think I might try that sleep thing, at least for a little while," he said.

They both stood, with a smoothness and unity that gave away the lie of their constant arguing.

"We're not going to talk about this ever again, are we?" Daniel asked. He sounded a little wistful.

When Jack answered, he sounded rock solid certain,

"Nope."

(0)

**A/N This story was originally published as two chapters in my ongoing series about Daniel (Sunshine and Shadow.) It occurred to me that it worked just as well as a short stand alone, for anyone who might just want to read about Jack and Daniel.**


End file.
